Change is inevitable. And it waits for no one.
I work in tech and this is something that jumps out at me every day. There's a new app, a new interface, a new way of doing something that makes something else obsolete.
We're always in this rush to innovate, to change things, to create. And somewhere in this rush, we're leaving folks behind.
Take touchscreens. They're everywhere now. I see them on payment terminals, ticket machines and car dashboards. They're sleek, modern and efficient. For most. It's only when you can't see the screen or your hands shake that you notice that what used to be a simple button press is now a guessing game.
Somewhere in the process, we swapped accessible for aesthetic and called it progress.
Voice assistants. Same thing. They're meant to make our lives easier, right? Except I haven't seen one to properly recognise my accent. These things struggle with speech patterns that aren't "standard." And my accent isn't the only problem. People with cerebral palsy or stroke survivors will struggle as well.
And then there's AI.
AI is touching and changing everything from how we search for information to how we apply for jobs. But the training data rarely includes perspectives of people with disabilities. If you ask it to create something for you, its outputs rarely work with screen readers. The whole system is built without thinking about who might be excluded.
This is because we feel we need to innovate faster. So we move faster. We automate more and more things.
But when the process sucks, speed won't make it suck any less. If you automate garbage, you'll just create garbage faster.
And more garbage is slower and harder to change.
This pattern is depressingly consistent.
In order to innovate, we have to launch first and retrofit accessibility later. If at all.
We sometimes treat it as a legal requirement rather than a fundamental part of design. And then we act surprised when it turns out millions of people can't use the thing we've built.
Come on, we know better than this. We've done the research. We've written the guidelines. People with disabilities have been saying the same things for years.
Ah, but knowing and doing are different things.
We can't stop or slow down change. Technology will keep moving and keep reshaping how we live, work and connect.
So what are we actually going to do about it?
What kind of future are we building. And who gets to be part of it?